Transcript: Angry Trump Unravels as Humiliating New Iran Leaks Hit

As officials leak fresh details about Trump’s colossal Iran screw-ups, a skilled interpreter of MAGA explains why his sycophants remain deeply in his thrall—and how it endangers the rest of us.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the August 7 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

Officials are leaking word that Donald Trump is privately raging at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, claiming he’s been misled about shortages in munitions that are now apparently limiting his options in Iran. Trump then went out on Truth Social and exploded in wild fury all over again. Meanwhile, other leaks indicate that he’s feeling very sensitive about his failures on Iran, to the point of feeling humiliated.

The careful reader of these stories will note that the only thing that isn’t discussed by Trump and his top advisors is whether Trump himself bears any responsibility for what’s happening on his watch. And these new follies really expose the perils of personalist rule—the perils of having a government that’s geared solely to satisfying the whims and corrupt interests of one man. So we’re talking about all of it with one of our go-to people on Trumpian narcissism, Salon’s Amanda Marcotte. Amanda, always good to have you on.

Amanda Marcotte: Thanks for having me.

Sargent: So The Washington Post reports that at Camp David this week, Trump’s anger boiled over. He demanded that Hegseth explain these munitions shortages that have now kicked in. Trump vented that he thought it had all been “fixed.”

Amanda, this might explain why Trump recently canceled a planned attack on Iran. He claimed the cancellation was because of progress in negotiations on the Strait of Hormuz, the idea being that Iran was so terrified of him that they’re meekly agreeing to negotiate, so he benevolently called off the strikes.

It really looks as if the truth is much darker—that Trump doesn’t know what the hell’s going on inside his own government.

Marcotte: Whenever Trump says that there’s a deal imminent, I just tune it out at this point, because that just has never been true. But it’s clear that he either didn’t think through the idea that if you throw a bunch of bombs, that means you have fewer bombs to throw next time, or he was lied to by his advisors. In neither case is it a good look, because in neither case does he show even an ounce of what being a leader is about.

Sargent: I think you actually get an important point there with this idea about him not understanding that if you use bombs, you have fewer bombs. Because he really does believe that he’s in a position of limitless strength. He thinks America has unlimited power, but by that he actually means he has unlimited power, because he couldn’t possibly be weak in any way.

And so you can really see how he goes from there to not really paying close attention to little details like what the war that he started is doing to our weapons stockpiles, right?

Marcotte: Yeah, he has a very childish vision of what American military might is, which is, we definitely have a large military, one of the biggest and most expensive in the world, but it’s not limitless. And crucially, as we found out in Iran, it’s not unlimited in its ability to just crush enemies.

There’s a reason that we’ve never had a war with Iran before. And I wish it was just that everyone was more peaceable. But it’s also that military experts recognize that just throwing bombs at a situation is not the same thing as fixing it.

Sargent: Well, there’s another funny detail in the Post story. It says this, quote: “Hegseth defended himself and blamed his deputy for the shortages and for not ensuring Trump was fully apprised of the issue.”

Amanda, Hegseth has to blame someone below him for the fact that Trump was not on top of the situation enough to know what the hell was happening. At no point can anyone say, why doesn’t the president of the United States know what his own war is doing to our ammunition stockpiles? What do you think of that?

Marcotte: This is something that I find super fascinating, and the examples are endless. It’s the paradox of MAGA, right? Which is, on one hand, they all worship Donald Trump as this almighty leader who knows everything and can do everything and is the greatest leader of all time and blah, blah, blah.

Also, he can’t ever be expected to know anything, be responsible for anything, et cetera. Like, he’s blameless always. He is like a........

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